David and the Promise of Covenant Friendship
For Meditation
From Justin Earley
In this signpost series, we’ve been looking at the lives of Old Testament characters and seeing how they point to Jesus. Last week we heard about Deborah and saw God’s providence in using an unlikely character like Deborah to deliver the Israelites. This week, we will look at story of David and ask the same question: What does David’s life tell us about Jesus?
David is amongst the most famous of all Old Testament characters. Every child knows the story of David and Goliath, and every adult knows the story of David and Bathsheba. In other words, David is as famous for his sin as he is for his successes. His life constantly shows this tension between human vulnerability and God’s promise. He’s the runt of his family, but chosen to be king. God gives him great military victories, but people around him constantly want to kill him.
Buried right in the middle of this tension of David’s story is a pivotal moment where a friend saves his life and paves the way for David to become King. This is the famous story of David and Jonathan’s covenant friendship.
This week we will see how Jonathan’s covenant to David shows us something remarkable about Jesus’ covenant to us. That is, that despite the fact that our lives (like David) are full of vulnerability and sin, God nonetheless chooses us, loves us, sticks with us; so much so that we (again like David) are destined for a kingdom. Because of Jonathan’s covenant friendship, David goes on despite his failures to see the promise of God.
This week we’ll see how much we are like David both in his vulnerabilities. We too live in a world where danger abounds, and our own sin threatens to ruin us. But we’ll also see how we live in the story of David’s kingship. That is, because of the covenant friendship of someone named Jesus, we too are being brought into a Kingdom.
In preparation for worship this week, meditate on John 15:12-16, and consider how this story about David friendship with Jonathan fits in to the Big Story of Scripture of God’s friendship to us.
1 Samuel 18:1–4
1 After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself. 2 From that day Saul kept David with him and did not let him return home to his family. 3 And Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. 4 Jonathan took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his tunic, and even his sword, his bow and his belt.
1 Samuel 20:30–32, 35, 41–42
30 Saul’s anger flared up at Jonathan and he said to him, “You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don’t I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you? 31 As long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdom will be established. Now send someone to bring him to me, for he must die!”
32 “Why should he be put to death? What has he done?” Jonathan asked his father.
35 In the morning Jonathan went out to the field for his meeting with David.
41 David got up from the south side of the stone and bowed down before Jonathan three times, with his face to the ground. Then they kissed each other and wept together—but David wept the most.
42 Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘The Lord is witness between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever.’” Then David left, and Jonathan went back to the town.
2 Samuel 1:25-26
25 “How the mighty have fallen in battle!
Jonathan lies slain on your heights.
26 I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother;
you were very dear to me.
Your love for me was wonderful,
more wonderful than that of women.